Women’s weeklies, paid digital newspapers both winning according to latest audit

by Marketing ON 13 May 2013

Australians continue to buy 17.5 million print and digital newspapers each week. And of that, paid digital editions are on the rise with sales of Australia’s major newspaper publishers’ national and metro mastheads detecting major upward trends, particularly over the January to March period.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations audit period, the shared weekly sales of the Monday to Friday digital editions of The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reached 659,735.

Year-on-year growth comparisons are available only for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age digital sales. There was a combined increase of 86.6% for their Monday to Friday digital editions in the latest quarter compared with the previous corresponding period in 2012. (The Australian was not yet reporting digital sales in the January to March 2012 quarter).

The weekly total paid masthead sales for Monday to Friday editions of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian in the latest quarter was 2,492,655.

A steady decline in printed newspaper circulation in the latest quarter is again to blame for the rise of digital with major publishers moving forward with their long-term strategy of cutting low-yielding copies and guiding print readers into the digital light.

Moving from newspapers to the mass women’s weeklies magazine category, and its two major titles, New Idea and Woman’s Day are flying according to the latest 2013 Roy Morgan readership figures.

Both grew their readership, increasing by 15.9% and 4.9% respectively, despite the continuing difficult retail conditions that have dampened consumer spending.

The latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) data reported that 1.66 million copies of weekly magazines are sold each week; a win for print in the digital-focused age.

And it seems that niche titles the likes of consumer interest: homemaker, health, food, specialist car and motorcycle, sports such as fishing and golf and gaming and IT categories have all developed in readership.

In a further plus for print, total magazine readership declined only slightly from 0.05% period-on-period and 1.6% year-on-year.

Magazine Publishers Australia (MPA) executive director Robin Parkes explaining: “We are really encouraged by the resurgence of interest in weekly women’s magazines, which are traditionally the key indicator of the magazine industry’s health.”

Parkes believes that the rise of new personalities on the plethora of reality TV shows bombarding Australian screens at present is playing some part in attracting readers.

And despite the magazine sector also suffering from budget cuts, Australian consumers still fork out $850 million plus on magazines every year.

93% of adults still read magazines and 13.5 million magazines are sold in Australia every month with social media integral in spreading the word.

“Our recent social media initiative earlier this month showed the level of reach and engagement that magazines have, reaching an audience of almost five million in just one day. Among the social media commentary, many readers expressed their love for printed magazines,” says Parkes.

Centralised media focus brings major rejig at Fairfax

by Marketing ON 4 April 2013

The latest reshuffle to hit Fairfax is led by the creation of a new national sales team which will represent all publications previously managed within Metro Media, Financial Review Group, Fairfax Regional Media and Agricultural Media.

Fairfax’s latest move has again been motivated by the ever-evolving new media landscape with agencies looking well beyond traditional means to turn more dollar.

The multi-pronged new team will take charge of metropolitan publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Canberra Times; Business publications including The Financial Review, BRW and Smart Investor; Rural and regional publications including more than 200 mastheads.

It includes display advertising in Fairfax’s classified and transactional businesses with Domain, MyCareer, RSVP and Stayz, with other Fairfax brands such as Daily Life, Drive, Essential Baby, Good Food and The Vine all being covered.

Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood says of the overhaul: “Fairfax has an enviable set of advertising clients. In many cases, our deep relationships with these clients span multiple Fairfax divisions, functions and brands [so] consolidating these relationships will allow us to work in true partnership and make the most of Fairfax’s large, diverse and valuable audiences.”

Meanwhile, local and direct sales for regional publications will continue to operate independently of the National Sales Team, and the Fairfax Radio Sales team will remain within the Fairfax Radio division.

Fairfax digital gun Ed Harrison has been promoted to lead the National Sales Team as Group Sales Director, reporting to newly appointed Managing Director, Australian Publishing Media, Allen Williams. But on the flipside, Metro Media chief executive Jack Matthews and Regional publishing head Allan Browne depart the company.

The management structure of the National Sales Team will be broadcast late April.

Fairfax to test pay walls overseas ahead of mid-year local launch

by Marketing ON 19 March 2013

Fairfax will introduce pay walls to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in a handful of overseas test markets next week ahead of a mid-year Australian launch.

A ‘metered’ digital subscription model will be introduced on the website in three overseas test markets on 26 March ahead of the local roll out, while the apps will be updated to a freemium model, the publisher revealed today.

The website’s metered model will give readers access to a number of free articles every month before prompting them to subscribe for $15 per month. Overseas readers will be capped at 10 free articles monthly, while the number will be set higher in domestic markets, reflecting the different consumption patterns.

Fairfax’s Metro Media CEO Jack Matthews says the company is confident the metered approach is the right way to go. “It was always our plan to launch into overseas markets first to test our technology and to make sure the customer experience is a good one,” Matthews reveals.

“The meter model is proving to be the most successful with publishers overseas because it’s easy to understand and it enables less frequent readers to continue to visit the websites, just as they do now.”

Fairfax appears to be treading softly with a number of concessions included as goodwill for readers. Current two-day or more print home delivery subscribers will automatically receive full digital access in their packages. And visits to the masthead homepages, photo galleries and videos will not count towards readers’ free article allocation.

The tablet apps for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald will remain free in every country until the pay wall is released in Australia later this year, when it will click over to a freemium model with several free sections and others available only for subscribers.

Subscribers will also receive access to a new range of features including a research tool developed in partnership with the University of Sydney that unlocks Fairfax archives, interactive eBooks curated by Fairfax journalists on specialist topics and unique offers, event invitations and access to other digital products through a domestic rewards program.

Fairfax editors and reporters took to video to explain the rationale behind the pay wall to readers:

The trial periods will be launched in North America, Europe and the Middle East, while readers from New Zealand and other Asia-Pacific countries will also be subject to the pay wall from mid year.

Initially, overseas subscribers will only be offered the option of unlimited website access from any device for $15 a month. Domestic subscribers will have access to additional subscription types, such as tablet apps and ‘all digital access’ packages, as well as bundles that include weekend and daily print home delivery. Digital access will include visits to the website from any device.

The move follows the launch of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in compact format early this month.

“The landscape has changed enormously over the past few years and our readers understand that we must introduce subscriptions so we can keep bringing them the best in digital news innovation,” Matthews believes.

ABC drives mobile-first motto with new companion app

by Marketing ON 6 March 2013

In a further sign that the ABC is an innovator in the new media broadcaster space, it is set to release its second screen ‘companion app’ on 20 March.

Mobile and tablets appear to be the broadcaster’s principal motivation going forward, feeling the television and radio format is not as strong as it once was.

Initial testing of the app will be on the comedy quiz show Tractor Monkeys in order to “trial it to see if it is the way to go,” says the ABC’s head of online and mobile, Mark Dando.

Led by the ABC’s Innovation unit, the team will also conduct a sequence of trials with third-party groups like Zeebox so they can decide on a fit, and see the real potential of this companion app. As the climate of how Australians interact with content is rapidly shifting, The ABC is at the forefront of change.

The ABC’s flagship apps were also restored to permit users to access “all related corporation content in one place”, with Dando confirming that the ABC was “reorganising [itself] to be mobile and tablet first”.

Further, akin to Fairfax’s The Age website, and the Herald Sun before it, the ABC also relaunched its own homepage after user research placed news as a priority for visitors.

With 70% of current homepage views being news related, Dando is using this data to continue to develop a news-focused site with a “simple, intuitive interface that was easy to use on tablets and on mobile phones”.

Compact won’t stop decline: Fairfax unveils strategy behind print overhaul

by Marketing ON 22 February 2013

BMW will be the official sponsor for the launch of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age compact editions, which Fairfax does not expect will arrest print declines long term.

Revealing copies of the new compacts to the media for the first time this morning, Fairfax said it expects an initial uplift following the new format’s launch on 4 March, but its strategy is not based around long-term circulation gains.

“There will definitely be an increase particularly at launch,” commercial director for Fairfax Metro Media, Ed Harrison, said. “Whether or not it gives us a huge sustained lift we will have to wait and see… Our strategy is not based around significant long-term gains in circulation.”

The move from broadsheet to compact is a well-trodden path among publishers globally, having played out in the UK and US some time ago. Fairfax moved its New Zealand Herald from a broadsheet to compact in September last year, resulting in a 30% improvement in sales in the first week, before tailing off to between 2% to 5% above its broadsheet figures.

Fairfax will also introduce new sections to the papers, redesign the homepages of their websites and simplify its rate card for advertisers, although ad rates will stay the same.

Director of advertising strategy, Sarah Keith, said extensive neuro-testing and eye tracking studies had been conducted on the new formats, revealing engagement with the content had improved 22% while eye gaze on ads was up 50%.

“When people purchase from us they purchase the environment, and that remains strong,” Keith said.

The resdesign will see sport placed at the back of the paper, business placed in a self-contained section that can be lifted out of the middle and new sections ‘Pulse’, a health and wellbeing section, and ‘The Shortlist’, an expanded entertainment guide, join the existing content streams. Fairfax stressed the tone and commitment to quality journalism will not change, even though the 10% jump in font size will mean shorter stories.

Redesigned homepages for the masthead’s websites will also be rolled out a day prior to the compact’s launch, focussed on reducing clutter and making mobile sites more ‘finger friendly’.

The change marks a rejuvenation of the brands across all platforms, chief product officer Sigrid Kirk said. “Fundamentally it’s about modernising our site… we’ve tried to make it more user friendly for multiple screens and devices,” Kirk said. “You’ll find that there’s more white space making it fundamentally more tablet friendly.”

The new design will also feature elements of personalisation, zeitgeist style content, more prominence to associated properties, such as women’s network the Daily Life, and highly shared and commented on content, in what is the first major revamp for the mastheads’ online destinations in several years.

It was revealed a 20% increase in referrals through social media had been noticed since social media editors were hired for each masthead during last year’s newsroom restructure.

“We’re thrilled from the response we’ve had from our readers on this,” Kirk added. “We’re not just launching a newspaper in a new smaller shape, we’re launching a fundamentally better product.”

BMW’s sponsorship of the launch, which promotes its X1 compact SUV, will see the brand ‘metroblock’ the Herald and Age for the day across print, website, mobile and tablet.

Digital buoys masthead sales: The Aus surges 25%, but Fairfax dominates online readership

by Marketing ON 15 February 2013

Digital newspaper subscriptions grew by 13% during weekdays and 19% on Saturdays to offset print declines and keep masthead sales above 18 million units per week, the latest circulation figures show.

During the October to December 2012 quarter, the combined average daily sales of digital subscriptions to The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age grew by 13.4% across Monday to Friday compared with the previous quarter, while Saturday’s digital editions grew 19.0%, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).

Growth was strongest for The Australian which increased subscriptions to its pay wall by 26.6% Monday to Friday and 26.4% on the weekend, to reach 39,539 and 39,671 digital subscribers respectively.

The Age also grew strongly, up 18.0% on weekdays, to hit 37,162 app subscribers, and 25.4% on Saturdays, to reach 40,011.

The Herald however continues to boast the highest digital subscriber numbers with 58,532 app subscriptions on weekdays, up 3.4% quarter on quarter, and 62,431 on Saturday’s, up 11.3%.

Total masthead sales across these three publications rose slightly in the latest quarter, up by about 1%, pointing to beginnings of an offset to print declines from digital subscribers, according to CEO of The Newspaper Works, Tony Hale.

“There is a clear trend emerging that shows Australians are embracing digital publishing with growing enthusiasm,” Hale says. “Australians continue to buy more than 18 million newspapers every week and although the bulk of these are still print editions, we are now also seeing the strengthening influence of digital purchases on the overall sales figures.

“It is still early days for paid digital sales, and in coming months, we will see the rollout of digital subscriptions across more and more mastheads, supported with enthusiastic marketing by the publishers.”

In terms of total readership of mastheads, paid or not, Roy Morgan’s combined print and online readership figures show the Sydney Morning Herald leading the pack and Fairfax Media’s metropolitan titles with a higher ratio of digital readers than News Limited’s titles.

With larger digital readership bases, Fairfax’s the Herald and The Age were more resilient than News’ Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun to the impact of eroding print audiences on overall readership figures.

The Herald’s overall audience grew 0.4% quarter on quarter in the December period to reach 3.2 million weekly readers and rank as the most highly read masthead. The Herald Sun followed with 2.9 million readers, a drop of 1.8%, and the Telegraph placed third with 2.5 million readers, a drop of 3.0%. The Age place fourth with a gain of 0.8% to reach 2.4 million weekly readers.

For print circulation and readership, the familiar story of significant decline continued, with the vast majority of mastheads experiencing dips in circulation and readership year on year.

Circulation of national newspapers dropped by 8.2% overall year on year. The Australian lost 8.4% to 9.6% across the week and weekend in circulation. In terms of readership, it grew 0.7% on Monday to Fridays, and 2.1% for the weekend edition.

The Australian Financial Review dipped by 3.3% to 7.7% for circulation and 1.3% to 5.2% in readership. Paid subscription figures for the AFR were not made available by Fairfax.

Circulation of metropolitan newspapers dropped by 6.4% to 8.1% year on year across the week.

New South Wales

The SMH shed 13.3% to 14.5% across the week in circulation, and lost 10.0% to 14.6% in readership.
The Sun-Herald shed 22.9% of circulation and 18.4% of readers. Paid digital editions were sold to 58,014 (up from 56,115 in Jun-Sep) to give the masthead a combined paid circulation of 334,063 units per week.
The Daily Telegraph was down by 2.0% to 4.1% in circulation, and fell 8.9% to 13.4% in readership. Sunday’s Telegraph was down by 3.2% in circulation and fell 11.8% in readership. News is yet to put pay walls around its Telegraph site.

Victoria

The Age fell 13.4% to 14.5% across the week in circulation, and declined by 10.7% to 12.7% in readership.
The Sunday Age dropped 14.0% in circulation and 10.8% in readership, while the digital edition sold 37,144 units (up from 31,941 in Jul-Sep to take total masthead sales to 199,892 per week.
The Herald Sun lost 4.7% to 5.4% in circulation across the week, and 6.1% to 11.1% in readership. On Sunday, the Victorian paper dropped 5.7% of its circulation and 11.0% of its readership. A pay wall was erected around premium content in March last year, but News has not made figures available.

Queensland

The Courier-Mail experienced greater declines on Saturday (-8.7% circulation) than Monday to Friday (-3.7% circulation), while The Sunday Mail dropped 5.2% in circulation.

South Australia

The Advertiser’s circulation was down 5.5% Monday to Friday and between 5.4% and 5.7% for its Saturday and Sunday editions

Western Australia

The West Australian was down 4.0% on average across Monday to Saturday, while its Sunday edition, The Sunday Times, dipped 5.4%.

ACT

The Canberra Times lost 8.8% on average across Monday to Saturday, while its Sunday edition shed 8.3% of its circulation

Tasmania

The Mercury was down 5.1% on average across Monday to Saturday, while its Sunday edition, the Sunday Tasmanian, dropped 7.2% of circulation.

Northern Territory

Northern Territory News shed 7.5% in circulation across Monday to Saturday, while its Sunday edition, the Sunday Territorian, lost 4.9%.

Twitter News Index: Fairfax, ABC dominate, independents break opinion stranglehold

by Marketing ON 6 February 2013

News sharing on Twitter in 2012 was dominated by broadsheet content with Fairfax and the ABC outstripping News Limited, while independents such as The Conversation succeeded in breaking the big publisher stranglehold on opinion content.

The Sydney Morning Herald sparked the greatest number of tweets in the last six months of 2012, both in the news and opinion categories analysed in the Australian Twitter News Index (ATNIX), an ongoing study conducted by Dr Axel Bruns of Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

The ABC’s news sites followed, commanding the second highest number of tweets during the six-month period, followed by Fairfax’s The Age, leading Dr Bruns to suggest Twitter users skew to urban, educated, affluent users, matching the typical audience for “quality news content”.

News’ broadsheet publication The Australian, stifled by its paywall, ranked in fifth spot with a minimal share of tweets compared to the top tier of publications.

“The strong performance of Fairfax’s two metropolitan broadsheets, and of Australia’s leading public service media organisation, suggests that Twitter user demographics remain skewed to the traditional audiences for relatively quality, broadsheet news, rather than for tabloid content as provided, for example, by News Ltd’s papers Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph,” writes Dr Bruns, associate professor in creative industries at QUT.

According to Bruns’ analysis, the Sydney Morning Herald accounted for around one in five tweets containing links to a news site, while the ABC’s news-related websites claimed 18%. The pair clearly led the pack for news content, between them accounting for well over a third of all tweeted links, with around 25,000 to 30,000 links to their sites tweeted each week.

The Age and news.com.au constitute a second tier of sites in terms of links shared, each commanding some 10% of the total volume of tweets. Between them, the top four sites own nearly 60% of all Australian news links being shared by Twitter users.

The remaining major news sources, led by The Australian and the two major tabloids – the Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph – failed to claim more than 7% of volume. None managed to advance beyond 10,000 tweets per week on a regular basis, and the majority struggled to reach the 5000 tweet mark.

Spikes in news sharing occurred around WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, ABC journalist Leigh Sales’s confrontational 7.30 interview with the opposition leader Tony Abbot and Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s now famous ‘misogyny’ speech in parliament, which made international headlines and earnt the ABC 6300 tweets over the course of two days.

While the concentration of media ownership in Australia was telling for news content, opinion content was a more open playing field with minor commentary sites able to break through with a major story at times.

Once again though, the Sydney Morning Herald was the dominant publication, commanding 23% of tweets with links to opinion content.

The Age placed second with a 14% share, beating out independent academic opinion site The Conversation by a slim margin of fewer than 2000 tweets over the past six months. Another independent, online-only opinion site, Crikey, rounds out the top four, with a share of 10%.

Against this, the ABC and News Ltd sites, home to notable commentators such as Andrew Bolt, Piers Akerman and Miranda Devine are comparatively absent, with blogs.news.com.au garnering only 7% of the total volume of tweets, while the ABC’s The Drum managed 5%. The Australian captured only 4%, again limited by its paywall.

“What’s more remarkable about the opinion and commentary field, however, is that – contrary to the mainstream of news reporting – it is possible for minor commentary sites to break through with a major story at times,” Dr Bruns points out. “New Matilda and Independent Australia both reached Crikey and even Conversation territory at least for a couple of weeks each during the past six months.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s domination of Twitter volume mirrors its command over news website traffic, with an average of 2.27 million unique visitors landing on the masthead’s site per week during the third quarter of 2012, according to Roy Morgan Research. Its closest competitor was the Herald Sun with an average of 1.34 million uniques per week.

The analysis is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (although it does not include‘button’ retweets, for technical reasons).

A total of over 3.9 million tweets which included links to Australian news sites – an average of some 140,000 tweets per week over the six months and two weeks between 8 June and 30 December 2012 were analysed. In addition, ATNIX tracked 580,000 tweets containing links to opinion articles.

Online and commercial broadcast news worst of distrusted media: study

by Marketing ON 23 January 2013

Australians are more likely to distrust than trust news on websites, blogs and commercial TV and radio, and more trust banks and mining companies than the media, according to a recent study.

The media industry was the second-most distrusted on the list of industries polled by Essential Media Communications, with 67% of the public distrustful of the media industry compared to only 30% who trusted it.

Among the different media outlets, commercial talk-back radio programs were the most distrusted, followed by commercial TV news and current affairs programs, news and opinion websites and commercial radio news programs. Blogs were even more distrusted than official media outlets, while the ABC’s TV and radio news programs garnered the highest levels of trust.

Q. How much trust do you have in what you read or hear in the following media?

The study, conducted among 1000 Australians between 16 and 20 January, also found that more residents of New South Wales distrusted the Daily Telegraph than trusted it, making the Sydney tabloid the least-trusted newspaper.

Fellow News Limited paper, Melbourne’s Herald Sun, also attracted high levels of distrust, while the publisher’s The Australian enjoyed considerably higher levels of trust at 65%.

The most trusted newspapers were Fairfax’s The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald which 71% of the public expressed a lot or some trust in.

Q. How much trust do you have in what you read in the following newspapers?

Note: Question was asked of residents of each publication’s state only

Trust in each of the publications has dropped by between 4% and 8% since a previous run of the study in mid 2011.

Fairfax digital sales stall, but outstrip News’ first audited pay wall figures

by Marketing ON 9 November 2012

Sales of digital newspaper subscriptions have stalled for Fairfax papers the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and The Age, but the troubled publisher outperformed rival News Ltd for digital sales in the first release of figures from behind The Australian’s pay walls.

Digital subscriptions plateaued for Fairfax during the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) July to September quarter, particularly for the SMH which grew its weekday digital subscriptions by only around 4000 during the quarter compared to a 16,000-odd jump during the previous quarter.

Subscriptions to the digital edition of the Sydney-based paper numbered 56,599 during the week and 56,113* on Saturdays over the current period, well above The Australian which sold 31,241 passes to its pay-walled premium content during the week and 31,381 on the weekends.

The Age fared better, growing its digital subscribers by around 8000 to 31,502 during the week and by around 6000 to 31,894 on Saturdays, but also fell well below the growth it achieved in the previous quarter.

Print circulation for these three leading titles – of which only The Australian will remain in broadsheet format once Fairfax moves to tabloid – continued to suffer the greatest declines, dropping by 12.2% to 13.1% year on year during for the quarter. The print decline was again more marked for the SMH and The Age than for The Australian.

Despite their continual decline, CEO of The Newspaper Works, Tony Hale says printed newspapers have a solid future ahead, with around 18 million copies still sold every week. Overall sales of Monday to Saturday national, metro and regional print newspapers declined by 5.9% in the July to September quarter, a figure consistent with the previous period.

Pointing to the multi-screen approach being adopted by publishers, Hale calls the current figures “the tip of the iceberg as the whole industry begins to report total sales across all publishing platforms”.

Roy Morgan Research supplements the ABC’s circulation data with readership data that produces a combined digital-print unique audience measure. In the second release of these figures, the SMH again topped the charts, attracting an average of 3.2 million readers per week over the quarter, ahead of the Herald Sun on 2.9 million, the Daily Telegraph on 2.5 million and The Age on 2.4 million. The Australian attracted a total combined audience of 1.8 million.

Combined net print-digital readership

In response to Roy Morgan’s findings, CEO of News Ltd, Kim Williams, took a swipe at the researcher’s methodology and reiterated that an alternative measure will be launched by The Readership Works, which will sit alongside The Newspaper Works from the first half of next year.

“Roy Morgan’s readership data released [yesterday] is out of kilter with the ABC circulation data,” Williams says. “The discrepancies between circulation and readership illustrate the problems in the Morgan methodology.”

Quoting a 16% increase in digital subscriptions to The Australian since March, Williams says, “The growth in digital subscriptions and strong audiences for our digital sites is encouraging as we continue to transform our business in serving consumers and advertisers across a rich range of technologies – print, online, mobile, tablet and broadcast.”

Hale agrees, citing a combined average daily sales of digital editions of The Australian, the SMH, and The Age of 120,000 during the quarter, as proof that people in Australia will pay for quality journalism in both print and digital formats.

Circulation data from the ABC and readership data from Roy Morgan is shown for each of the major mastheads below.

National

Circulation of national newspapers dropped by 5.3% overall year on year.

The Australian lost 4.6% to 5.6% across the week in circulation. In terms of readership, it fell 1.2% on Monday to Fridays, but rose by 0.2% for the weekend edition. Across Monday to Friday, the masthead sold 31,241 digital subscriptions (16% growth since March according to unaudited figures from News) to bring total sales to 154,697. On the weekend, digital subscriptions totalled 31,381 bringing total sales to 299,106.
The Australian Financial Review arrested its decline relative to previous quarters, down by 3.9% to 6.5% for circulation and 8.4% to 8.8% in readership. Paid subscription figures for the AFR were not made available by Fairfax.

Metropolitan

Circulation of metropolitan newspapers dropped by 5.4% to 7.5% year on year across the week.

New South Wales

The SMH shed 15.1% to 15.9% across the week in circulation, and lost 9.3% to 14.0% in readership. For its digital editions, the masthead took in 56,599 (up slightly from 52,663 in April to June and 36,816 in January to March) in paid sales on Monday to Friday, resulting in a combined digital and print sales figure of 187,260 (down from 192,740 in Apr-Jun and from 198,335 in Jan-Mar). Saturday’s combined figure totalled 283,062 (down from 308,249 in Apr-Jun and from 310,410 in Jan-Mar) readers, with 56,113 (up from 56,058 in Apr-Jun and 40,158 in Jan-Mar) paying for digital editions.
The Sun-Herald shed 21.3% of circulation and 13.2% of readers. Paid digital editions were sold to 56,115 (up from 52,340 in Apr-Jun and from 40,268 in Jan-Mar) to give the masthead a combined paid circulation of 342,325 (down from 363,339 in Apr-Jun and from 402,350 in Jan-Mar).
The Daily Telegraph was down by 1.8% across Monday to Friday editions and up 0.1% on Saturdays in circulation, but fell 11.0% to 13.2% in readership. Sunday’s Telegraph was down by 1.0% in circulation and fell 10.5% in readership. News is yet to put pay walls around its Telegraph sites.

Victoria

The Age fell 15.1% to 16.9% across the week in circulation, and declined by 12.1% to 13.3% in readership. Digital sales of 31,502 (up from 23,811 in Apr-Jun and from 9,311 in Jan-Mar) on Monday to Friday took the overall masthead paid circulation to 173,405 (down from 180,833 in Apr-Jun to fall back in line with 170,005 in Jan-Mar), while on Saturdays 31,894 (up from 25,060 in Apr-Jun and from 9,369 in Jan-Mar) bought digital editions, taking Saturday combined masthead sales to 233,670 (down from 246,161 in Apr-Jun and from 245,597 in Jan-Mar).
The Sunday Age dropped 15.4% in circulation and 11.6% in readership, while the digital edition sold 31,941 units (up from 24,782 in Apr-Jun and from 9,376 in Jan-Mar) to take total masthead sales to 201,652 (up from 200,950 in Apr-Jun but still down on 210,650 in Jan-Mar).
The Herald Sun lost 3.5% to 4.4% in circulation across the week, and 11.0% to 14.0% in readership. On Sunday, the Victorian paper dropped 5.7% of its circulation and 14.9% of its readership. A pay wall was erected around premium content in March, but News has not made figures available.

Queensland

The Courier-Mail experienced greater declines on Saturday (-6.1% circulation) than Monday to Friday (-2.1% circulation), and The Sunday Mail dropped 5.4% in circulation.

South Australia

The Advertiser’s circulation was down 3.1% Monday to Friday and between 5.7% and 5.8% for its Saturday and Sunday editions

Western Australia

The West Australian was down 0.8% on average across Monday to Saturday, while its Sunday edition, The Sunday Times, dipped 4.3%.

ACT

The Canberra Times lost 8.0% on average across Monday to Saturday, while its Sunday edition shed 8.0% of its circulation

Tasmania

The Mercury was down 2.6% on average across Monday to Saturday, while its Sunday edition, the Sunday Tasmanian, dropped 6.1% of circulation.

Northern Territory

Northern Territory News shed 6.7% in circulation across Monday to Saturday, while its Sunday edition, the Sunday Territorian, lost 3.5%.

*The audited numbers are a daily average across July-September.

Newspaper audit data: Digital up, but is it increasing enough?

by Marketing ON 10 August 2012

April to June’s newspaper readership figures have been released with the reassurance, once again, that combined print-digital masthead readership has never been higher, as the increase in digital views outweighs the dip in print circulation.

While newspaper circulation fell by 6% year on year in the April to June 2012 audit period, metropolitan digital sales show quarter on quarter growth of 64% according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC).

Circulation, as well as readership, of print declined across all publishers. For the majors, circulation of national titles declined by 2.2% Monday to Saturday, while metropolitan titles slumped by 6.2% Monday to Sunday. Roy Morgan’s readership data shows declines for print versions of the major titles of between 2% and 15%.

The Newspaper Works’ CEO, Tony Hale, was quick to reinforce that despite the fall, there had never been more Australians reading newspapers in both a printed and digital form.

“The fact that 18.4 million copies of newspapers are sold each week supports the assertion that there is a strong future for the printed newspapers in Australia.” Hale says. “There is a lot of life in the printed product yet.”

Combined print-digital readership figures, released for the first time under Roy Morgan’s hybrid consumer recall and machine based measurement tool for websites only, place Fairfax’s the Sydney Morning Herald as the leading masthead with 3.3 million people reading the publication weekly.

News Ltd, which has erected paywalls for premium content on its websites for The Australian and Herald Sun, commands second and third place for the most read publications, with the Herald Sun boasting a combined readership of 3 million weekly and The Daily Telegraph reaching 2.6 million weekly.

CEO of Fairfax’s Metro Media business, Jack Matthews, says the migration of readers from print to digital is industry-wide, with no publication immune to the shift in consumer behaviour.

“We are right to be focusing on the digital and mobile expansion of all of our mastheads so we can capture as much of that shift as possible,” Matthews says. “We’re doing so to make print sustainable for the future and we’re doing so from the best possible position as shown in the first total masthead readership results.”

Circulation of the nation’s three largest broadsheet papers declined by 10.4% to 11% year on year during the current period.

The Australian lost 0.7% to 2.5% across the week in circulation, and fell 3.5% to 6.1% in readership.

The Sydney Morning Herald shed 14.7% across the week in circulation, and lost 8.7% to 13.9% in readership. For its digital editions, the masthead took in 52,663 (up from 36,816 in January to March) in paid sales on Monday to Friday, resulting in a combined digital and print sales figure of 192,740 (down from 198,335 in Jan-Mar). Saturday’s combined figure totalled 308,249 (down from 310,410 in Jan-Mar) readers, with 56,058 (up from 40,158 in Jan-Mar) paying for digital editions.

The Sun-Herald shed 9.7% of circulation and 9.7% of readers. Paid digital editions were sold to 52,340 (up from 40,268 in Jan-Mar) to give the masthead a combined paid circulation of 363,339 (down from 402,350 in Jan-Mar).

The Age fell 13.2% to 14% across the week in circulation, and declined by 13.6% to 13.7% in readership. Digital sales of 23,811 (up from 9,311 in Jan-Mar) on Monday to Friday took the overall masthead paid circulation to 180,833 (up from 170,005 in Jan-Mar), while on Saturdays 25,060 (up from 9,369 in Jan-Mar) bought digital editions, taking Saturday combined masthead sales to 246,161 (up from 245,597 in Jan-Mar).

The Sunday Age dropped 14.6% in circulation and 12.3% in readership, while the digital edition sold 24,782 units (up from 9,376 in Jan-Mar) to take total masthead sales to 200,950 (down from 210,650 in Jan-Mar).

Circulation of national newspapers dropped by 1.8% to 3.2% year on year across the week. The Australian Financial Review suffered greater losses than The Australian, down by 3.7% to 5% for circulation and 2% to 11.3% in readership.

Metropolitan papers declined by 6.2% in circulation Monday to Sunday year on year.

The Daily Telegraph was down by 1.2% to 1.4% across the week in circulation and 9.4% to 11.4% in readership. Sunday’s Telegraph was down by 1.9% in circulation and down 8.8% in readership.

The Herald Sun lost 5.1% to 6.4% in circulation across the week, and 12.4% to 12.5% in readership. On Sunday, the Melbourne paper dropped 7.8% of its circulation and 14.5% of its readership.

In Queensland, The Courier-Mail experienced greater declines on Saturday (-8.6% circulation) than Monday to Friday (-8.6% circulation), and The Sunday Mail dropped 7% in circulation.

South Australian and Western Australian metropolitan mastheads experienced milder declines, with the Advertiser down 0.6% Monday to Friday and between 2.8% and 4.6% for its weekend editions, and the West Australian down 1.2% on average across Monday to Saturday.

Regional papers lost 6.8% of their circulation across Monday to Sunday.

Fairfax sales: highest print drop on record while iPad edition soars

by Marketing ON 30 July 2012

While combined print-digital sales for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald remained relatively stable, Fairfax’s flagship print publications suffered some of their heaviest losses on record.

Sydney’s Sunday paper the Sun-Herald plummeted by 23% on the same time last year, down from sales of 432,617 to 335,174. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age also saw their sales decline accelerate – the Herald’s Saturday circulation fell by 17% from 332,492 to 274,682 and its Monday to Friday circulation fell by 13% from 192,102 to 166,438, while The Age’s fell 15% on Sundays, 12% on Saturdays and 13% for the weekday editions.

Performance of the mastheads’ digital properties, particularly strong uptake of mobile apps, buoyed overall circulation however, with Fairfax reporting that combined sales for the Herald and the Sun-Herald fell by only 3% on May while The Age on weekdays grew 1% and fell 1% on Saturday and Sunday.

Fairfax attributes the print decline to its strategy to drop unprofitable newspaper circulation. “We’re right on track for removing deeply discounted circulation that was of no value to our advertisers,” Fairfax Metro Media CEO, Jack Matthews says. “We make no apology for focusing on full price retail and long‐term subscriptions.”

The release of the new version of the SMH and Age for iPad caused a spike in downloads, with cumulative downloads up 19% for the SMH and up 20% for The Age on May. Altogether there were 116,560 new downloads in June, meaning 695,247 readers have downloaded an app.

“We’ve had an extraordinary number of downloads in just 16 days,” Matthews says. “It even outstrips the launch of the apps a year ago. Our aim is to get as many people as possible to sample the new version before we introduce digital subscriptions next year.”

Daily unique browsers on the SMH iPhone app also grew, up 23% in June to a new record, driven, Fairfax claims, by the first full month of its print-digital integration tool AirLink, which links video and photo galleries to articles and ads in the SMH print edition.

One in five SMH app users utilised AirLink and Fairfax claims these “more engaged” users consumed 53% more pages per visit than non‐AirLink users.

Also in bad news for the monetisation of the company’s digital operations, monthly video streams declined year on year, down 15% to 5.5 million for smh.com.au and 16% to 3.1 millionfor theage.com.au.

Fairfax share of voice outstrips News on Twitter

by Marketing ON 27 June 2012

In some good news for Fairfax, the publisher’s mastheads are dominating share of voice on Twitter, according to a study.

Analysis of tweets containing links to 26 of the top news and opinion sites in Australia, shows that Fairfax’s the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have significantly more stories shared on Twitter than their News Ltd competitors.

The study, conducted by Queensland University of Technology professor Dr Alex Burns found that combined Fairfax’s top four online mastheads gross 35% of links shared, compared to 25% for News Ltd’s top four.

The Sydney Morning Herald was the strongest performer commanding 20% of news carrying links, followed by theabc.net.au with 19%, The Age with 10%, news.com with 8%, The Australian with 7%, the Herald Sun with 7%, and the Daily Telegraph with 5%.

In a blog entry, Dr Burns writes that the findings, collected between 15 and 22 June, are a strong result for Fairfax in what was a bad week for company. While the coverage of last week’s events, which saw Fairfax announce 1900 job cuts and major upheavals to its business model, was heavy across media outlets, Burns concedes Fairfax’s share may have been artificially boosted, but as this was the first time the analysis was conducted it remains to be seen how much of Fairfax’s lead can be put down to the news.

In Brisbane, Fairfax’s online-only news site Brisbane Times outperformed its local News Ltd rival, the print-and-online Courier-Mail, by a small margin of 900 tweets with both commanding 3% share of voice. Fairfax’s Australian Financial Review recorded 2% share of news carrying tweets.

In terms of opinion sites, Crikey dominated the competition, garnering 43% of links shared. It was followed by the ABC’s The Drum (or articles by non-ABC commentators published under the abc.net.au/unleashed URL path), with 20% of share, and News Ltd’s The Punch which upstaged Fairfax’s opinion site, the National Times, by 2%.

With both major news providers restructuring for a digital future, the analysis is being conducted to investigate whether circulation-style figures can be built by tracking the source of online readers, in this case by tracking the links being shared on Twitter.

Burns hinted at plans to take into account the number of followers each sharing user has to gain a more complete picture of who is performing the best when it comes to sharing on Twitter. Analysis has also been conducted into the impact of The Australian’s paywall on its Twitter sharing.

The links tracked in the study were both full links and also links where the actual URL contained a shortened t.co, bit.ly, or other short link, but eventually pointed to a news site.